UKC

In recent UKC news a new line is reported on Painted Wall which is protected in its lower half by these hybrid things...as are a bunch of others on this wall.

News link here:- 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/05/first_ascent_of_olwen_e9_6c_for_jam...

Is it safe to assume that drilled and glued "peg bolts" are now acceptable on Gogarth? What are the criteria for placing them? Is it only for routes above a certain grade, or is it slightly more nuanced than that?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

It sounds like they long pre-dated the new route and were utilised in it, rather than having been added for it. Strikes me as a worthwhile distinction to make at the outset.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Probably safer just to reread the previous threads in the topic for the full range of views. Should be easy to find them, you contributed to at least one of them.

In reply to Tyler:

They retain a spicy peg element by not all being glued and sometimes are loose enough to be removed by hand. Buyer beware!

In reply to Frank the Husky:

All the negative points of pegs and bolts rolled into one.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

As others have pointed out, there's nothing new here since the threads last year.

I think there's been enough stamping of feet to slow down the dastardly drillers and their wedge-driving vandalism.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either...

The Mighty Boosh

In reply to Tyler: I may well have contributed to those threads, probably in favour of a rational approach to fixed gear on sea cliffs…which probably includes stuff like this.

My memory isn’t that good and no one has yet summarised the rationale behind them. I’m not too concerned by these things being installed, but I’m certainly curious to know if only routes of E6 and above can have them or are the rest of us allowed to play?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Are there many examples of potential sub-E6 routes that have long sections of featureless rock that have no options for traditional protection?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

So, let me get this right straight...

You didn't like the consensus that came out of the last thread about peg bolts that was a giant threadnaught from sometime last Thursday.

You'd rather like to be able to start putting peg bolts all over Gogarth.

You saw this news article and decided to use it as the most tenuous of tenuous justifications to repeat the exact same topic.

You are now hoping that somehow, magically, this new thread will yield a different community consensus that you can use as justification to begin pegbolting.

Do correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that the biased way in which your questions are couched lends significant evidence for my deductions.

In case you couldn't guess my response from the above: No. Peg bolting is a terrible idea. If the route is too hard and dangerous for you, leave it for someone else.

In reply to Andrew Wilson:

TPS?

<ducks>

In reply to Frank the Husky: here you go Frankie - used the search function 😏 might help that memory https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/bolts_now_ok_at_gogarth-727165?...

In reply to henwardian:

Hello henwardian - allow me correct you because your deductions are...a very long way off!

I've been in the US for the last three-ish weeks and wasn't aware of any related threadnaughts (great description btw) in that time...so no, I had no clue about that thread. A quick search for "peg bolts" or even a general "gogarth" hasn't revealed it even now.

I'm not interested in putting peg bolts "all over" Gogarth, but I do like a pragmatic approach to fixed gear. It seems that common sense has made some inroads into the (at times) stagnant and reactionary fixed gear discussion and progress has been made, which I fully approve of. I've spent these last few weeks on some big and sometimes sketchy aid towers in Utah. However, all the belays have bomber bolts between pitches of dubious tricams/hooks/etc in blown out placements. Despite those bolts, the adventure element is on overdrive. More of that please!

Your final statement about "too hard/bold" is one point of view but it's reminds me of context free phrases that pop up every now and then in this sort of discussion. "Thin end of the wedge" being the other obvious candidate, and context is everything.

I'm glad to see these things being put in. They are unlikely to appear on anything much below E5 as there are nearly always decent, modern gear placements available in place of rotten pegs etc.

In reply to Neil Morrison:

Thanks boss. I don't expect to remember what I had for tea three days ago, let alone what was posted in a forum three years ago!!

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I presume the routes are big enough to in the main avoid groundfall, in which case are you basically saying that bomber belays will (mainly) stop you dying, but you might still take some massive lobs before being stopped by the bomber belays, and that you endorse that kind of setup even if it does mean adding fixed gear at belays?

I can appreciate that view, scary but ultimately safe - allows a non-sanitised experience but keeps the worrying about dying factor down.

In reply to Frank the Husky: hence the search function 😏

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Searching for those two terms together finds it fairly easily...

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/pegbolts-754307

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Fair enough. I think one of the first replies was from someone who said you had contributed to the last Gogarth Pegbolt thread so I assumed (cue one more round of ass, me, you word play) you had without checking. I don't actually remember when that thread was, it's just in my brain as recent, "last Thursday" is my offhand way of saying recently and with my deteriorating mental capacities that probably means a few weeks to months.

I'm more of a purist, as I'm sure you have surmised! I've got projects around the place on sea cliffs with strong trad histories like Gogarth and even though they vary from safe to dangerous to suicidal, I'd still never stick a bolt in one, I'd rather leave it for a hypothetical day when I'm both strong and devil-may-care bold or, more likely, people who are better than me.

I don't.

I don't see the relevance. Aid is barely a thing anywhere in the UK in the 21st century. And now we are talking about bolted belays, which is different again and I don't think that is relevant either, I only know of one route in the UK where the belay is reputedly so crap it's terrifying (Enchanted Broccoli Garden) and as far as I know, it's possible to back it up with an ab rope. There isn't anywhere in the UK even remotely like the desert towers of Utah so I don't think it's valid to import their local ethics here.

In the context of Gogarth, I've climbed quite a few routes at a number of cliffs there and I've even abbed down a couple of routes that were too hard for me on North Stack Wall and worked out the moves and thought "that doesn't seem to hard but good god would be a space-hoppers-for-balls day that I'd ever consider leading it!". I haven't ever seen anything at Gogarth that was a totally blank face with zero possibilities for gear (this isn't to say that such lines don't exist, it is a huge place). Where there are just very serious sections interspersed with bits of better or worse gear, I think the leader should either pony up or admit fear and mental weakness has got the best of them!